Proving a point - optimising the Paladin

[Darth_Versity]

A friend of mine is new to DnD and he was very excited to try the Paladin, but it didn't live up to his expectations. The problems is that he plays WoW and expected to be playing the almighty monster that they are in the game (apparently that is, I've never played WoW)

He complained that WotC had f**ked up the paladin and did it wrong and I said it merely takes a certain amount of skill and optimisation to make a Paladin one of the greatest things to play. So he challenged me to prove that a Paladin could be good. Challenge Accepted.

The restrictions are

Lvl 10
28 pt buy
No LA buyoff
Max 1 flaw
Races: All PHB plus Planetouched, Anthro Bat and Anthro Huge Viper.
Max 1 template
Any WotC book, no 3rd party or Dragon.
Must use no Multi/Prestiege classing

So currently I'm thing of either a Silverbrow Human or Lesser Aasimer with the Drakkensteed and Celestial Mount ACFs. Got to have Battle Blessing as a feat and can have the Mount take a Draconic Aura or two.

Use items to get mounted combat and ride by attack (riding boots and battle bridle)

I was also wondering whether to take the Saint template. It'll eat up 3 of my feats, which is a huge cost, but in return it gives so much.

Any ideas or suggestions to make this better would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Sword of the Arcane order for some extra punch via spells, a fully dumping your BAB into PA with spirited charger and a a valorous lance + wraithstrike is quite fun :smallwink:

[*.*.*.*]

Sword of the Arcane order for some extra punch via spells, a fully dumping your BAB into PA with spirited charger and a a valorous lance + wraithstrike is quite fun :smallwink:

This man preaches truth


You could always make a kick ass sorcadin, but that isn't optimizing a pally per say.

[Dusk Eclipse]

OP said no multiclassing or prestige classing... so Sorcadin is right out.

Also taking Serenity from DC(?) might help you with your MAD problems

[*.*.*.*]

OP said no multiclassing or prestige classing... so Sorcadin is right out.



Didn't see that, carry on then

[Big Fau]

Your friend has it backwards: WoW made a paladin that's actually good at it's job. 3.5's Paladin was a huge load of flavor on a very bad chasis. Everything about the class can be replicated (even the exclusive Battle Blessing feat can be mimicked via DMM Quicken). WotC didn't get the Paladin archetype correct until they printed the Crusader.


However, as stated above, Sword of the Arcane Order+Battle Blessing (Complete Champion) can make for a solid build.

[RedWarrior0]

Your friend wants to play a paladin like in WoW. The Paladin in D&D will not be able to cut it for him. While the concept is cool, a Paladin as in WoW will not be able to cut it in D&D. Why?

The WoW wiki highlights three roles the Paladin fits best into. DPS (bwahahaha), Tanking (Oh boy) and healing (snicker).

DPS is mostly irrelevant, as the game is almost always rocket tag or at the point where HP damage doesn't matter all that much; also, DoT is typically bad. Tanking is bad because there isn't an aggro system; it's what also makes a DD bad. In-combat healing is a waste of actions, and out-of-combat healing can be achieved much more easily by a Cleric, or other classes.

However, I suggest you show him the Crusader if you have the Tome of Battle, as a Crusader is well-known for its endurance, has the stance that basically forces all aggro on you, and has some healing powers with its attacks.

If he insists on a Paladin, then I got nothing.

Edit: CUUUUURSE YOU NINJAS!

[Morph Bark]

Your friend has it backwards: WoW made a paladin that's actually good at it's job. 3.5's Paladin was a huge load of flavor on a very bad chasis. Everything about the class can be replicated (even the exclusive Battle Blessing feat can be mimicked via DMM Quicken). WotC didn't get the Paladin archetype correct until they printed the Crusader.


However, as stated above, Sword of the Arcane Order+Battle Blessing (Complete Champion) can make for a solid build.

This. WoW came after DnD after all. Dunno about 3.5 in particular, but I figure they came after 3.0 at least.

Also, no PrCs? Paladin has some good PrC-ing, though granted most might require a little multiclassing, except maybe the ones that say you are allowed to continue taking Pally levels afterwards.

[RedWarrior0]

This. WoW came after DnD after all. Dunno about 3.5 in particular, but I figure they came after 3.0 at least.

Also, no PrCs? Paladin has some good PrC-ing, though granted most might require a little multiclassing, except maybe the ones that say you are allowed to continue taking Pally levels afterwards.

A little research gives that WoW was released November '04, so indeed after 3.5; the Warcraft series as a whole predates WotC's acquisition of TSR by only 3 years; D&D as a game is 30 years older than WoW.

Edit: To explain the other problem with the Paladin, the fact that it is MAD, compare Ability scores to Spec trees. It's not a perfect comparison by any means, but it will work for this issue. The D&D paladin is like a class in WoW that sucks unless you fill up all three spec trees, at least halfway to two thirds of the way. The problem is, you only get enough to fill up one completely and not invest in the others at all, or fill up two halfway ignoring the other one. It just doesn't work, unless you cheat (or roll really well in the case of D&D).

[Yora]

I think the easiest way to play a warcraft style paladin is to go straight cleric. Or Fighter/Cleric.

[gkathellar]

As far as I'm concerned, Sword of the Arcane Order + Mystic Fire Knight + Battle Blessing is the core paladin build. Go for a two-handed charger w/wraithstrike and season to taste.

Of course, if your friend really wants to play a WoW-esque Paladin, he really can't do better than playing a Crusader.

EDIT: Does no Dragon include Dragon Compendium? Because Serenity is an awesome feat for paladins and goes a great distance in reducing MAD.

[navar100]

Battle Blessing feat from Complete Champion will help. Paladins get so few spells, it's nice to be able to cast a self-buff and still attack that round.

Take Martial Stance feat for Thicket of Blades. Use a reach weapon and go for Lockdown combat. Because of point buy and Paladin MAD, may have to sacrifice Wisdom spellcasting for Dexterity Combat Reflexes. Use wealth by level for a Wisdom enhancement item to enable spellcasting.

Divine Vigor feat - spend a turn undead for +10ft speed and +2 temporary hit points per level. Last Charisma modifier minutes.

[T.G. Oskar]

If you're getting to use the mount for maximum damage, it makes little sense to get the mounted combat feats through items, since you'll lose Spirited Charge (arguably the best reason to go mounted).

Saying that, you could easily use the flaw + Silverbrow Human, get all three mounted combat feats (Mounted Combat, Ride-by Attack and Spirited Charge), go with a lance (+1 valorous for greater effect) and deal sizeable damage by 10th level. That's about 3 feats (out of 5-6 depending on which race and whether you accept a flaw), so while it hurts a bit, Spirited Charge more than makes up for it.

Spells are quite important, and with a minimum of 12 Wisdom (since the challenge is to make a 10th level Paladin, not a 20th level) you can get up to 2nd level spells. With Battle Blessing you get Complete Champion, which with Spell Compendium means you got access to Master Cavalier and One Mind, and with Holy Mount you can essentially replace the Celestial Mount ACF. That, and Rhino's Rush (the last thing your friend will want is a x4 charge attack set up almost every action).

That takes care about damage, but...what else? Wands will be crucial, and since you can use wands of higher levels with little trouble, you should invest on quite a few. At least a wand of CLW for outside of combat healing will make wonders for your party (if you have one), and if you can make sure there's a safe moment and you're wounded, it also heals in a pinch. It also keeps your mount safe and sound, and while you might not use CLW as a swift-action spell, it DOES allow you to take evasive actions and heal the mount (that, or a scroll of Heal Mount which works even better). Remember you can also use Resist Energy, which while weaker than the norm (because of half-casting, which means resistance 10 when the Cleric is one level close to resist 30...), easily used through a wand for pre-buffing.

In order to surprise your friend, Dungeonscape (IIRC) has wand sheathes which you can add to your lance, which means you can, instead of preparing Rhino's Rush with your spell slots you can simply activate a wand from the lance itself and charge all your way into insane damage. That leaves which spells to use into the slots, specifically your 2nd level spell slots.

Saint is a slight trap, since while it's phenomenally good, it is also phenomenally restrictive, much worse when you have so little feats (3 mounted combat feats, Battle Blessing). You could do something better using the remaining feats (if any, whether going human, Silverbrow, using the flaw, or combining race + flaw) by going Divine Might (more damage, yay!) or Power Attack and Awesome Smite (which makes better use of your 3/day smite attacks by making them ignore some DR, knock your opponents prone or ignore miss chances).

There's just one other way to make this even worse, which would imply replacing your mount with Charging Smite, using a two-handed weapon (preferably a reach weapon such as a guisarme or ranseur), then going Power Attack, Leap Attack and Awesome Smite. Not only do you get part of the charging goodness, if you decide to smite, you can combine the awesome damage of PA with the benefits of the tactical feat, AND you can basically lock down the enemy (though, you might need to invest a bit on Int to get Combat Expertise and Improved Trip to make it even more dangerous). You'll lose the benefits of the mount (better movement...basically that's it. Ah, and some extra attacks that might not make a difference compared to your damage potential), but you get to do high damage AND lockdown, which makes you fearsome in combat. You might get a feat to spare if done carefully (going human, for example, and/or using the flaw), which might be useful if you nudge Animal Devotion into the mix (easiest flight method ever, and it gets recharged via uses of Turn Undead!).

So it's mostly deciding whether you want the mount or not. You'll need a decent Strength, Constitution and Charisma scores (and if going lockdown, sacrifice a few of these for Intelligence), but you can make a decent pally in combat, and tactfully use wands for things outside of combat. Diplomacy and Sense Motive (if you can nudge both skills) can make you pretty good outside of combat as a party face, as well, so that's a good plus.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

WoW Paladins don't use mounts in combat, so throw that out the window; get the Charging Smite ACF in PH2.

I'm going to point out something often overlooked about the Martial Study feat, and that's the fact that you only need to meet a given maneuver's prerequisite to learn it (i.e. number of [discipline] maneuvers) with no minimum initiator level for a given maneuver. Note that martial adepts are still restricted by their built-in restriction on what level of maneuvers they can learn based on initiator level, but a Paladin 1 can get Martial Study: Claw at the Moon and use it once per encounter. Some may disagree with this, in which case he'd need to pick Wolf Fang Strike, but it's not too important.

Earth Dwarf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#racesOfEarth) or Desert Dwarf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm#desertRaces), Paladin 10, Martial Study: Claw at the Moon, Power Attack, Leap Attack, Song of the Heart; Quick trait (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterTraits.htm#quick) (no flaws). Get Gather Information and Tumble instead of Handle Animal and Ride (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a), the Harmonious Knight (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) 1 and 6 substitution levels, the Charging Smite ACF at Paladin 5, and free stuff (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a) that probably won't matter. Minimum gear should be a +1 Valorous Falchion, some decent heavy armor, Armbands of Might, and a Badge of Valor.

He can Inspire Courage for +3, which is a suitable replacement for the WoW Paladin's auras. DPS in D&D is irrelevant, it's all about big hits that kill opponents in a single blow, so let's look at what this guy does:

With Str 18, Cha 14, +1 Valorous Falchion, and Armbands of Might:
Charging Smite adds +2 to hit, +30 damage (+1/level smite evil, +2/level charging smite).
Power Attack for -4 to hit adds +20 damage (+8 power attack, +2 armbands, increased by 100% for Leap Attack).
Inspire Courage adds +3 attack, +3 damage.
The Valorous weapon doubles your damage on a charge. He should cast Rhino's Rush before charging for another doubling, which makes it triple damage. If he gets a critical hit it would instead be x4 damage, assuming a normally x2 crit.
His Jump check should be 13 ranks, +4 Str, no bonus or penalty for speed, but minus his armor check penalty, versus a DC 10 if he charges at least 30 feet, or DC 20 for a 10-25 ft. charge, to use Leap Attack. You could add on a Ring of (Improved) Jumping for a +5 or +10, and a masterwork tool (fancy sneakers) for another +2 for 50 gp.

That's a +18 to hit (10 BAB, +4 Str, +1 weapon, +2 smite, +3 inspire courage, +2 charge, -4 power attack), which should be sufficient to hit anything he fights at that level.
His total damage on that charge is 6d4+180 (+6 Str two-handed, 2d4+1 weapon, +30 smite, +20 power attack, +3 inspire courage, and then tripled for Valorous and Rhino's Rush), with an 18-20 crit which would increase it to 8d4+240, and with Claw at the Moon he'd get another +2d6 damage and a +4 to confirm a critical hit.

He can get a Wand of Cure Light Wounds or Faith Healing and be just as good a healer as any other class. He can wear heavy armor and get an animated shield, he's got d10 hp per level, and he's a credible threat and will be charging into the opponents, so he can 'tank' just fine. All in one character, without having to respec or change gear between roles.

[gkathellar]

I'm going to point out something often overlooked about the Martial Study feat, and that's the fact that you only need to meet a given maneuver's prerequisite to learn it (i.e. number of [discipline] maneuvers) with no minimum initiator level for a given maneuver.

That's ... an incredibly questionable interpretation of the text, which I just went back to read. In fact, I'd say it rings almost entirely false. Martial Study tells you to "select any maneuver from the chosen discipline for which you meet the prerequisite," yes, but Initiator Level is a prerequisite.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

That's ... an incredibly questionable interpretation of the text, which I just went back to read. In fact, I'd say it rings almost entirely false. Martial Study tells you to "select any maneuver from the chosen discipline for which you meet the prerequisite," yes, but Initiator Level is a prerequisite.

But look at each individual maneuver. Each one has a class-specific level requirement, and then a completely separate 'prerequisite' line. Martial Study only requires that you meet whatever is listed in that separate 'prerequisite' line to acquire a given maneuver. "...for which you meet the prerequisite," is singular, not plural, so it would not be both the level requirement and the maneuvers-known-prerequisite, it's one or the other and it specifically says the prerequisite and not the level. If you have levels in one of those specific classes, then you're also limited by your initiator level, but otherwise that 'prerequisite' line is the only relevant limitation when gaining a maneuver via Martial Study. I don't want to derail the thread, as this isn't even a significant portion of the build apart from gaining Jump as a class skill, so if you want to discuss this further you should make a new thread for it.

[Prime32]

A cleric/ordained champion with DMM buffs is probably closer to a WoW-style paladin.

And PF's paladin class (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/paladin) is one of the best parts about that system.

[ericgrau]

Well he's new and you know all 50 books you might have. The core paladin is only ok, and if done poorly he'd be better off with a fighter or barbarian.

Ya the WoW paladin is really good. You could tell him class balance is different in D&D. It's easiest to make a good barbarian and depending on what's allowed and how meticulous and knowledgeable of a player you are you might do best with a sorcerer or wizard.

[GoatBoy]

I don't know if any class at all could have met his expectations. WoW is geared toward a very short attention span; D&D requires patience and planning.

The D&D paladin is rather weak, but so is every core class when starting at level 1 and being restricted to PHB only, and when played by beginners. The paladin just happens to be one which doesn't get much better with experience and supplemental material.

Unless WoW has changed in the year or so since I stopped playing, D&D will never match your friend's perception of the paladin in WoW, throwing splashes of light around and topping the DPS charts. Even a crusader will likely feel like a major slow-down. I suggest you follow the suggestions here as far as optimizing the class, but also encourage your friend to sit back, take a deep breath, and understand that D&D is about imagination and immersion, and the game is exactly as fun as you want it to be.

Or have him try 4th edition, which is (slightly) more geared toward the WoW crowd.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Have him play a crusader.

That said, the paladin can be good. A pegasus, griffon, or hippogriff is attainable via Paladin Mount without needing to take a feat, leaving room for another mounted combat one. Serenity feat cuts down on MAD, and is in Dungeon Compendium, so it's official. You've already mentioned Battle Blessing. SotAO has already been mentioned, but your friend might not let you ignore fluff prereqs. Other than that, mounted combat feats. Mounted Combat, Ride-By-Attack, Spirited Charge, maybe something else. Have your mount take Flyby Attack.

[Gwendol]

Purple dragon knight and Aglorandan griffon rider both allow for progressing as paladin, while giving some nifty class features (although the AGR is best viewed as a dip for getting a griffon sooner).

[T.G. Oskar]

Well he's new and you know all 50 books you might have. The core paladin is only ok, and if done poorly he'd be better off with a fighter or barbarian.

Consider it introduction by immersion. The last you want the newbie is to choose Weapon Focus (longsword) for his Paladin because he thinks it's cool and because he wants to take Weapon Specialization (longsword) later on...

At least three specific books are a necessity (Complete Champion for the spells, domain feats, Battle Blessing and Paladin ACFs; Spell Compendium for the spells and another book to taste) to make a strong Paladin, but playing one requires a degree of system mastery that borders on actual immersion into optimization. Remember that the challenge is to make a character that actually works and that can reach the level of power that a WoW Paladin enjoys; with Charging Smite and charger mechanics he could claim to be a Ret-Paladin in some ways, focusing on damage.

I can accept Barbarian (it is a simple build, actually), but Fighter...that's another monster. A good Fighter knows how to make its build from the first 6 levels; delve too far, and you'll start losing. Partly because ToB is so good; it's very user-friendly, despite requiring a bit of reading. Fighters are deceptively user-friendly, since a "decent" build requires planning for the right feats. It's not just reaching Shock Trooper at 6th level; it's choosing something the character can do after the Wizard, if any, starts locking down enemies with Web/Stinking Cloud/Glitterdust/Evard's Black Tentacles without feeling left out (specifically with Evard's Black Tentacles, which can leave you out of combat for fear of getting trapped as well). You might do a Fighter that can pull off doing two things relatively well, but attempt for three things and you start getting a bit left out; hard to pull off, say, being a good archer, a strong charger AND using Intimidate appropriately without delving into Zhentarim Fighter ACF; that exploits all feats a Fighter could provide and grant some diversification to the build, but requires choosing carefully which feat to acquire at which level and the right combination of stats to work that out. Generally that requires delving into many books, but you can eventually reduce that into 10 or even 5 books.

But yeah: as Prime says, a WoW Paladin is actually a Cleric. Full Plate, starts with hammers and maces, three specializations (DPS, Healer, Tank) can be done easily with core Cleric it's not even funny. You could say Ordained Champion is the Retribution Tree, while...well, Hospitaler/Radiant Servant is the Healing Tree and maybe Crusader/RKV(V) is the Protection tree.

[Darth_Versity]

He's actually already playing a cleric as I assured him that it would meet his expectations better than the Paladin. I just want to prove to him that a Paladin CAN be awsome.

Maybe the Saint template is to costly due to the feats required so i'll stick to a more traditional type of Paladin.

I like Biffoniacus_Furiou's suggestion. Laying down the smack is more what he sees as a great build so it would really show him what can be done with some optimisation.

[Valameer]

The paladin in WoW is a lot closer to the D&D cleric class, not the D&D paladin class.

If you want to be the smashy tank, awesome healer, I have so much resources an army wouldn't be able to wear me down and also I get lots of free stuff for no reason kind of guy, make a cleric.

Then respeccing prot, ret, or holy is as easy as changing up your spell list every day, really.

[Heliomance]

DPS in D&D is irrelevant, it's all about big hits that kill opponents in a single blow, so let's look at what this guy does:

With Str 18, Cha 14, +1 Valorous Falchion, and Armbands of Might:
Charging Smite adds +2 to hit, +30 damage (+1/level smite evil, +2/level charging smite).
Power Attack for -4 to hit adds +20 damage (+8 power attack, +2 armbands, increased by 100% for Leap Attack).
Inspire Courage adds +3 attack, +3 damage.
The Valorous weapon doubles your damage on a charge. He should cast Rhino's Rush before charging for another doubling, which makes it triple damage. If he gets a critical hit it would instead be x4 damage, assuming a normally x2 crit.
His Jump check should be 13 ranks, +4 Str, no bonus or penalty for speed, but minus his armor check penalty, versus a DC 10 if he charges at least 30 feet, or DC 20 for a 10-25 ft. charge, to use Leap Attack. You could add on a Ring of (Improved) Jumping for a +5 or +10, and a masterwork tool (fancy sneakers) for another +2 for 50 gp.

That's a +18 to hit (10 BAB, +4 Str, +1 weapon, +2 smite, +3 inspire courage, +2 charge, -4 power attack), which should be sufficient to hit anything he fights at that level.
His total damage on that charge is 6d4+180 (+6 Str two-handed, 2d4+1 weapon, +30 smite, +20 power attack, +3 inspire courage, and then tripled for Valorous and Rhino's Rush), with an 18-20 crit which would increase it to 8d4+240, and with Claw at the Moon he'd get another +2d6 damage and a +4 to confirm a critical hit.


That line at the top there is a very questionable assumption, and this build is the kind of thing that gives optimisers a bad name. I know that none of the DMs around here would ever allow a character that can reliably do ~200 damage at no cost, and that includes myself, a shameless optimiser. Unless you're playing with an exceptionally high-op group, anything that regularly does more than about 50 damage, MAYBE 100 at HIGH levels, is not suitable for real life play.

Rocket tag is boring. Either the DM's prepared fight is wasted, or PCs start dropping like flies. Neither outcome is desirable.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

A friend of mine is new to DnD and he was very excited to try the Paladin, but it didn't live up to his expectations. The problems is that he plays WoW and expected to be playing the almighty monster that they are in the game (apparently that is, I've never played WoW)

He complained that WotC had f**ked up the paladin and did it wrong and I said it merely takes a certain amount of skill and optimisation to make a Paladin one of the greatest things to play.

Toss this man the Tome of Battle, give him the Crusader, and make his day.

[grarrrg]

Since no one has chimed in on Templates yet...

Dragonborn +2 Con -2 Dex, and some useful abilities.

OR

Mineral Warrior LA+1, +2 Str, +4 Con -2 all mentals. DR 8/Adam and other abilities. The mental penalties can be lessened by taking the Serenity feat (only need 1 mental instead of 2).

[Zonasiy]

But look at each individual maneuver. Each one has a class-specific level requirement, and then a completely separate 'prerequisite' line. Martial Study only requires that you meet whatever is listed in that separate 'prerequisite' line to acquire a given maneuver. "...for which you meet the prerequisite," is singular, not plural, so it would not be both the level requirement and the maneuvers-known-prerequisite, it's one or the other and it specifically says the prerequisite and not the level. If you have levels in one of those specific classes, then you're also limited by your initiator level, but otherwise that 'prerequisite' line is the only relevant limitation when gaining a maneuver via Martial Study. I don't want to derail the thread, as this isn't even a significant portion of the build apart from gaining Jump as a class skill, so if you want to discuss this further you should make a new thread for it.

Let's see... Martial Study states you select any maneuver that you meet the prerequisites for. Let's head over to the Prerequisite section of the Blade Magic chapter. It states that "in addition to meeting the class and level requirements before you can learn a maneuver, you must meet a certain set of requirements to be able to choose that maneuver as one you know." So according to this text, maneuvers have 3 requirements: class, level, and known maneuvers.

So now we have a problem. Non-initiator classes can't meet the class requirement. Is this feat supposed to ignore the class requirements, but leave the level and known maneuvers requirements? That's not consistent, but is probably the RAI.

The only way for this feat to work for non-initiator classes as written would mean that the prerequisites mentioned in the feat really only do refer to the maneuvers known requirement.

I don't think that's how the feat should work, but that's how I read it as written. Good catch on the rules.

[Basket Burner]

That line at the top there is a very questionable assumption, and this build is the kind of thing that gives optimisers a bad name. I know that none of the DMs around here would ever allow a character that can reliably do ~200 damage at no cost, and that includes myself, a shameless optimiser. Unless you're playing with an exceptionally high-op group, anything that regularly does more than about 50 damage, MAYBE 100 at HIGH levels, is not suitable for real life play.

Rocket tag is boring. Either the DM's prepared fight is wasted, or PCs start dropping like flies. Neither outcome is desirable.

At level 20? 200 damage is nothing. Nothing at all. Especially if it is all you can do, which in that case it is. It isn't even that reliable, as you are entirely dependent upon a level 20 enemy being chargeable. At level 10 the damage is better, but it's still very shaky on the reliability front. If you could do that at 5 it might be cause for concern, until you remember that this is only killing one at a time.

If you only do 50 or 100 damage at those levels, you might as well not even be there. If you have a DM that hates damage dealing that bad, then you just play a Tier 1 and be better than any damage dealer could ever dream of being with a tiny fraction of the effort and optimization required.

If you don't like playing rocket tag, then I would suggest that you play 4th edition as any 3.x version or earlier is going to revolve around it. Regardless of whether your character can keep up or not.

[ClothedInVelvet]

I think it's really hard to optimize a paladin...

I've got it, I'll suggest that he play a crusader, even though that's not going to help in the OP's predicament (he was challenged to optimize a paladin).

No one mentioned that yet, right?

[T.G. Oskar]

I think it's really hard to optimize a paladin...

I've got it, I'll suggest that he play a crusader, even though that's not going to help in the OP's predicament (he was challenged to optimize a paladin).

No one mentioned that yet, right?

Fourth and fifth, to be precise. Posts, that is. Not a funny joke either.

Also, the OP has apparently accepted some of the gracious examples of how to optimize a paladin to do some decent damage by 10th level; no need to degenerate this gents. Unless there's some way to optimize the Paladin a bit more; high damage + lockdown seems like a very good tactic, much like mounted charging and/or exploiting Paladin static damage (such as making a smite with a crit-friendly weapon, take Imp. Critical or a Scabbard of Keen Edges, Blood in the Water, then hope for that 1-in-4 chance of very nice damage). And that goes without attempting some mild diplomancy on the way.

Yes, it's not enough, but it's a playable Paladin. So no need to go debating about the nature of the game according to optimizers. This'll make roleplayers cringe!

[grarrrg]

I think it's really hard to optimize a paladin...

I've got it, I'll suggest that he play a crusader, even though that's not going to help in the OP's predicament (he was challenged to optimize a paladin).

No one mentioned that yet, right?

I disagree, the Crusader (from Tome of Battle) is much more betterer, and has the right flavorinoids to be considered Paladinyish.


Seriously though, are there any decent Substitution levels?

[T.G. Oskar]

Seriously though, are there any decent Substitution levels?

Charging Smite for charging builds, Divine Spirit (from Dungeonscape) if you don't want the mount but you want to help in the buffing and the healing of the party, Mystic Fire Knight helps a lot, Harmonious Knight replaces essentially nothing and gains three Bardic Music abilities...

Is this some form of elevated sarcasm or something? Because I tend to have days where my Sense Motive modifiers are defective...

[grarrrg]

Charging Smite for charging builds, Divine Spirit (from Dungeonscape) if you don't want the mount but you want to help in the buffing and the healing of the party, Mystic Fire Knight helps a lot, Harmonious Knight replaces essentially nothing and gains three Bardic Music abilities...

Is this some form of elevated sarcasm or something? Because I tend to have days where my Sense Motive modifiers are defective...

First half last post = Sarcasm

Second half last post = Serious

I've never bothered with the Paladin enough to worry about substitution levels. The extent of my Paladin knowledge is typically "use serenity > less MAD".
The rest is more in the realm of 'general melee goodness'.

[Morph Bark]

He complained that WotC had f**ked up the paladin and did it wrong and I said it merely takes a certain amount of skill and optimisation to make a Paladin one of the greatest things to play. So he challenged me to prove that a Paladin could be good. Challenge Accepted.

There's just one big problem.

Do you know what he thinks is fun in playing a WoW Paladin? Or why he thinks WotC f**ked up the Paladin? If you don't, you will probably have a lot of trouble with your attempt to prove that a Paladin can be good.

If he is new to DnD, he might simply not appreciate the playstyle it encourages. Otherwise, you will need to make three Paladin builds: one focused on DPR, one on tanking and one on healing. These are to mirror the WoW talent trees of a Paladin. However, you won't be able to make them sufficiently different enough without PrCs most likely, but that is one of the flaws of the rules your friend posited, as PrCs are a mechanic inherent to DnD 3.5 that WoW simply utterly lacks.

[Heliomance]

At level 20? 200 damage is nothing. Nothing at all. Especially if it is all you can do, which in that case it is. It isn't even that reliable, as you are entirely dependent upon a level 20 enemy being chargeable. At level 10 the damage is better, but it's still very shaky on the reliability front. If you could do that at 5 it might be cause for concern, until you remember that this is only killing one at a time.

If you only do 50 or 100 damage at those levels, you might as well not even be there. If you have a DM that hates damage dealing that bad, then you just play a Tier 1 and be better than any damage dealer could ever dream of being with a tiny fraction of the effort and optimization required.

If you don't like playing rocket tag, then I would suggest that you play 4th edition as any 3.x version or earlier is going to revolve around it. Regardless of whether your character can keep up or not.

Rubbish. Crowd control and such actually helps in that regard. I'll (tentatively) grant you the point at level 20; I've never actually played at that level so I don't know what the environment's like. At level 10 though, rocket tag is easy enough to avoid, with a little thought. A villain with plenty of crowd control but little in the way of high damage, and some reason why he's a threat anyway - a trio of vrocks, maybe - is a challenging encounter, that will take the PCs a while to defeat, but won't run the risk of accidentally TPKing them. The vrocks have to be shut down before they complete the dance of ruin, so the main bad guy doesn't get hit at all for a while. The dance of ruin almost certainly won't actually go off, but the threat of it is enough. Meanwhile, the bad guy spends his time making the PCs' lives difficult.

I utterly disagree that someone doing 50 damage at level 10 might as well not be there. 50 damage is very respectable. It might not kill anything in one hit, but so what? It makes it that much easier for the next person to kill the target. I don't understand the mentality that hit point damage is worthless. Save or dies are worthless. If the enemy saves, that action was wasted. If they don't, then everything the party has done to that target so far is wasted. With a damaging effect, they're closer to death.

The object of D&D is to have fun, not to "win D&D". That object is the same for the DM as well. If every encounter he comes up with dies in less than one round, that's no fun. And actually, it's no fun for the players, either, as there's no challenge - every fight is an anticlimax. And by your logic, boss encounters are impossible.

I think I'd actually prefer to DM for Tier 1s than for a ludicrously damaging ubercharger, because the Tier 1s play better with others. The ubercharger has a dichotomy: either he's useless, or everyone else is. The wizard doesn't have that, he can find a comfortable middle ground. Imagine if every enemy was optimised to the point that they can output 200 damage on a charge. The average level 10 fighter with 16 Con has 85 hit points. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have the level of character turnover that implies.

[Basket Burner]

Rubbish. Crowd control and such actually helps in that regard. I'll (tentatively) grant you the point at level 20; I've never actually played at that level so I don't know what the environment's like. At level 10 though, rocket tag is easy enough to avoid, with a little thought. A villain with plenty of crowd control but little in the way of high damage, and some reason why he's a threat anyway - a trio of vrocks, maybe - is a challenging encounter, that will take the PCs a while to defeat, but won't run the risk of accidentally TPKing them. The vrocks have to be shut down before they complete the dance of ruin, so the main bad guy doesn't get hit at all for a while. The dance of ruin almost certainly won't actually go off, but the threat of it is enough. Meanwhile, the bad guy spends his time making the PCs' lives difficult.

+18 to hit. That is very low for a level 10 character. I also see no mention of anti anti charge measures other than flight. It's unreliable.

At level 10, rocket tag is actually more common than at level 20 because there are fewer immunities at these levels and it takes more work to get all your saves to 2 or better succeeds level. 3 level 9 enemies taking 3 rounds to do a mere 20d6 is what is known as sandbagging. Even the lowly Fireball beats that, and it does so on each of the three rounds. In such an instance the party all jumps the big guy, and then all jumps one of the Vrocks and still prevents the dance of ruin... but if they somehow don't, they're still far better off than if the Vrocks were doing... just about anything else. Or were just about anything else.


I utterly disagree that someone doing 50 damage at level 10 might as well not be there. 50 damage is very respectable. It might not kill anything in one hit, but so what? It makes it that much easier for the next person to kill the target. I don't understand the mentality that hit point damage is worthless. Save or dies are worthless. If the enemy saves, that action was wasted. If they don't, then everything the party has done to that target so far is wasted. With a damaging effect, they're closer to death.

50 damage is decent at level 5. At level 10, it means a normal enemy only loses a third of their HP. Two thirds is a lot higher than 0. So when you do 50 damage to something at level 10, there is a 100% chance that enemy is still at 100% fighting effectiveness. If you cast a save or die/lose/suck, then you are looking at a > 0% chance of greatly reducing or entirely negating their fighting effectiveness. Unless the enemies are designed to buff up their saves heavily, that chance is around 50-75%. The other 25-50% of the time, nothing happens but that is better than nothing happening 100% of the time.

HP have the following states: Alive, disabled, dying, dead. And the third and especially the second are so narrow they are often skipped entirely.


The object of D&D is to have fun, not to "win D&D". That object is the same for the DM as well. If every encounter he comes up with dies in less than one round, that's no fun. And actually, it's no fun for the players, either, as there's no challenge - every fight is an anticlimax. And by your logic, boss encounters are impossible.

It is difficult to enjoy a game that you cannot play on account of being unable to kill the enemy before they kill you. Encounters dying in less than a round is mildly unusual, but really not that big of a deal. Fast =/= easy.


I think I'd actually prefer to DM for Tier 1s than for a ludicrously damaging ubercharger, because the Tier 1s play better with others. The ubercharger has a dichotomy: either he's useless, or everyone else is. The wizard doesn't have that, he can find a comfortable middle ground. Imagine if every enemy was optimised to the point that they can output 200 damage on a charge. The average level 10 fighter with 16 Con has 85 hit points. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have the level of character turnover that implies.

That is the problem with non casters. A lot of people will happily allow Druids with Fleshraker animal companions but will get highly upset if a martial character dips Barbarian, Fighter, and Warblade as a Dragonborn Water Orc. As if the latter were somehow better than the former.

Such a Fighter actually has 89 HP, but that's beside the point. Enemies do sufficient damage without much help. It's just PCs that lose out without some serious work. Such a Fighter also dies in 3 hits from unoptimized enemies a level lower than him.

[Hirax]

It's worth pointing out that level 6 is where the lid comes off damage, thanks to shock trooper. To stray even further, at level 10 you could be a dragonborn warblade1/pouncewhirlbarian1/fighter4/bloodstorm blade4

This build makes terrain and opponent reach irrelevant to charging; your range is limited by how far you can throw, and you can fly. Combine with a spear's 20' range increment and dragonborns doing double damage with piercing weapons on dives and, well, things get ridiculous. Reconfigure the first 6 levels as desired.

[Heliomance]

+18 to hit. That is very low for a level 10 character. I also see no mention of anti anti charge measures other than flight. It's unreliable.

At level 10, rocket tag is actually more common than at level 20 because there are fewer immunities at these levels and it takes more work to get all your saves to 2 or better succeeds level. 3 level 9 enemies taking 3 rounds to do a mere 20d6 is what is known as sandbagging. Even the lowly Fireball beats that, and it does so on each of the three rounds. In such an instance the party all jumps the big guy, and then all jumps one of the Vrocks and still prevents the dance of ruin... but if they somehow don't, they're still far better off than if the Vrocks were doing... just about anything else. Or were just about anything else.
The thing about DoR is that it's huge. 70 damage to everyone and everything in the area is going to seriously spoil the PCs' day. It'll likely kill the wizard outright. They need to stop it.




50 damage is decent at level 5. At level 10, it means a normal enemy only loses a third of their HP. Two thirds is a lot higher than 0. So when you do 50 damage to something at level 10, there is a 100% chance that enemy is still at 100% fighting effectiveness. If you cast a save or die/lose/suck, then you are looking at a > 0% chance of greatly reducing or entirely negating their fighting effectiveness. Unless the enemies are designed to buff up their saves heavily, that chance is around 50-75%. The other 25-50% of the time, nothing happens but that is better than nothing happening 100% of the time.

HP have the following states: Alive, disabled, dying, dead. And the third and especially the second are so narrow they are often skipped entirely.
You have other party members. If they then go and do 50 damage each, the bad guy falls over. Depending on initiatives, he maybe - MAYBE - got one go. And three people got to contribute. If you cast a save or die, you're looking at a > 0% chance of making the other players irrelevant. And if the enemy saves, you haven't made him any easier for anyone else to kill.




It is difficult to enjoy a game that you cannot play on account of being unable to kill the enemy before they kill you. Encounters dying in less than a round is mildly unusual, but really not that big of a deal. Fast =/= easy.
I don't think I ever advocated deliberately TPKing your party. And being unable to kill the enemy before they kill you is not the same as being unable to kill the enemy before they get a turn. I think the latter should be standard. A bad guy that dies before his first action is a let down, no fun for the DM, and (after the second or third time it happens) no fun for anyone else.




That is the problem with non casters. A lot of people will happily allow Druids with Fleshraker animal companions but will get highly upset if a martial character dips Barbarian, Fighter, and Warblade as a Dragonborn Water Orc. As if the latter were somehow better than the former.Not entirely sure what your point is here.


Such a Fighter actually has 89 HP, but that's beside the point. Enemies do sufficient damage without much help. It's just PCs that lose out without some serious work. Such a Fighter also dies in 3 hits from unoptimized enemies a level lower than him.
Ooh, a whole 4HP more! That'll save him!

Dying in three hits is manageable, and reasonable. Dying in one hit isn't.

[Gotterdammerung]

WoW Paladins don't use mounts in combat, so throw that out the window; get the Charging Smite ACF in PH2.

I'm going to point out something often overlooked about the Martial Study feat, and that's the fact that you only need to meet a given maneuver's prerequisite to learn it (i.e. number of [discipline] maneuvers) with no minimum initiator level for a given maneuver. Note that martial adepts are still restricted by their built-in restriction on what level of maneuvers they can learn based on initiator level, but a Paladin 1 can get Martial Study: Claw at the Moon and use it once per encounter. Some may disagree with this, in which case he'd need to pick Wolf Fang Strike, but it's not too important.

Earth Dwarf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#racesOfEarth) or Desert Dwarf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm#desertRaces), Paladin 10, Martial Study: Claw at the Moon, Power Attack, Leap Attack, Song of the Heart; Quick trait (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterTraits.htm#quick) (no flaws). Get Gather Information and Tumble instead of Handle Animal and Ride (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a), the Harmonious Knight (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) 1 and 6 substitution levels, the Charging Smite ACF at Paladin 5, and free stuff (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a) that probably won't matter. Minimum gear should be a +1 Valorous Falchion, some decent heavy armor, Armbands of Might, and a Badge of Valor.

He can Inspire Courage for +3, which is a suitable replacement for the WoW Paladin's auras. DPS in D&D is irrelevant, it's all about big hits that kill opponents in a single blow, so let's look at what this guy does:

With Str 18, Cha 14, +1 Valorous Falchion, and Armbands of Might:
Charging Smite adds +2 to hit, +30 damage (+1/level smite evil, +2/level charging smite).
Power Attack for -4 to hit adds +20 damage (+8 power attack, +2 armbands, increased by 100% for Leap Attack).
Inspire Courage adds +3 attack, +3 damage.
The Valorous weapon doubles your damage on a charge. He should cast Rhino's Rush before charging for another doubling, which makes it triple damage. If he gets a critical hit it would instead be x4 damage, assuming a normally x2 crit.
His Jump check should be 13 ranks, +4 Str, no bonus or penalty for speed, but minus his armor check penalty, versus a DC 10 if he charges at least 30 feet, or DC 20 for a 10-25 ft. charge, to use Leap Attack. You could add on a Ring of (Improved) Jumping for a +5 or +10, and a masterwork tool (fancy sneakers) for another +2 for 50 gp.

That's a +18 to hit (10 BAB, +4 Str, +1 weapon, +2 smite, +3 inspire courage, +2 charge, -4 power attack), which should be sufficient to hit anything he fights at that level.
His total damage on that charge is 6d4+180 (+6 Str two-handed, 2d4+1 weapon, +30 smite, +20 power attack, +3 inspire courage, and then tripled for Valorous and Rhino's Rush), with an 18-20 crit which would increase it to 8d4+240, and with Claw at the Moon he'd get another +2d6 damage and a +4 to confirm a critical hit.

He can get a Wand of Cure Light Wounds or Faith Healing and be just as good a healer as any other class. He can wear heavy armor and get an animated shield, he's got d10 hp per level, and he's a credible threat and will be charging into the opponents, so he can 'tank' just fine. All in one character, without having to respec or change gear between roles.


Work in blood-spiked charger with this. It would be a decent attempt at a Thibbledorf Pwent build. It isn't power-gaming cheese when a member of the Gutbuster Brigade does it.

[Basket Burner]

The thing about DoR is that it's huge. 70 damage to everyone and everything in the area is going to seriously spoil the PCs' day. It'll likely kill the wizard outright. They need to stop it.

Level 10 Wizard: 66 HP. Nah, not dead. Even if he has no defenses, which would be like the sun not being hot.

Why the hurry? It's all three of their actions, for 3 rounds before anything at all happens. If they were instead Fireball slingers of all things, which is the worst thing you can do with enemy arcanists they would be doing more than 20d6, they'd be doing it every round, and when you kill one of them you stop a third of the damage and not all of it.

3 rounds is more than enough time to kill the main guy and kill 1 Vrock, neutralizing the encounter with little effort and getting a disproportionally high reward for doing so.


You have other party members. If they then go and do 50 damage each, the bad guy falls over. Depending on initiatives, he maybe - MAYBE - got one go. And three people got to contribute. If you cast a save or die, you're looking at a > 0% chance of making the other players irrelevant. And if the enemy saves, you haven't made him any easier for anyone else to kill.

It is easier for one party member to go before the enemy than for the entire party to go before the enemy. So the enemy gets a turn, and not slowed down in any way does one of the following:

Casts a save or lose on you. Assuming such a clearly weak party, half or three quarters of the party is shut down. Which really puts a damper on those plans to get at his > 0 HP total.
Full attacks someone, either one rounding them or taking them down more than low enough to finish them on round 2.

Sure, three people got to look busy - and the entire party suffered for it. Which is why 50 damage is nothing at level 10. It's a throwaway move. Casting a save or die means there is a > 0% chance that you save your party from suffering. Damage dealers that nonetheless only manage a mere 50 points of damage made themselves irrelevant. And that means that it is all up to you, and anyone else that can contribute in a manner appropriate to level 10 characters.

If the enemy saves, then you are no worse off than in the 50 damage scenario. Just that the 50 damage scenario has around a 0% chance of preventing this, whereas the save or die/lose/suck scenario has around a 50-75% chance of preventing this. To put it another way, you encounter it 2-4 times less often. Last I checked, that is a good thing.


I don't think I ever advocated deliberately TPKing your party. And being unable to kill the enemy before they kill you is not the same as being unable to kill the enemy before they get a turn. I think the latter should be standard. A bad guy that dies before his first action is a let down, no fun for the DM, and (after the second or third time it happens) no fun for anyone else.

The point is that combats are going to be finished quickly. They might be finished quickly because the PCs won, or they might be finished quickly because they did not win, but they will be finished quickly. Having encounters die in less than a round means they don't have the chance to kill anyone. Giving them plenty of chances to act, as you suggest gives them plenty of chances to kill everyone. And given that enemies can easily take out a character in 1 or 2 rounds, being unable to kill the enemy before they kill you and being unable to kill the enemy before it gets a turn, while not entirely the same thing are very similar to each other.

I don't know about you, but I'm happy when the party kills an enemy before it can move. And I mostly DM. Players didn't seem to mind too much either.


Not entirely sure what your point is here.

You said something to the effect of that you were not comfortable with chargers and their damage, and that you would prefer Tier 1s to that. I mused on the irony of how a lot of people are biased against non casting characters.


Ooh, a whole 4HP more! That'll save him!

Dying in three hits is manageable, and reasonable. Dying in one hit isn't.

That's why I said that it was beside the point.

Enemies at that level get 2 or 3 attacks. Each. Still feeling good about dying in 3 hits? Keeping in mind at this level AC is well past the point at which it is useful, so being hit is practically a foregone conclusion.

There is a game writeup somewhere in which the Barbarian is described as a glass cannon and the Wizard is described as a tank. An inexperienced player might conclude that they put the wrong descriptions by those classes. But they were absolutely right.

Fighters, of course have less HP than Barbarians.

As for chargers themselves, as much attention as Shock Trooper gets Leap Attack is more important. Doubling PA ratios > trading to hit penalties for AC penalties. Especially when it is possible to stack to hit to the point where you don't need to do that.

[Tyndmyr]

That line at the top there is a very questionable assumption, and this build is the kind of thing that gives optimisers a bad name. I know that none of the DMs around here would ever allow a character that can reliably do ~200 damage at no cost, and that includes myself, a shameless optimiser. Unless you're playing with an exceptionally high-op group, anything that regularly does more than about 50 damage, MAYBE 100 at HIGH levels, is not suitable for real life play.

Rocket tag is boring. Either the DM's prepared fight is wasted, or PCs start dropping like flies. Neither outcome is desirable.

Look, I knew I played at decent op levels, but my players broke the 50 damage marker in the first session with level 6 chars.

I mean, d6/level fireballs average 35 damage per target at CL 10 with absolutely no optimization. Why shouldn't someone focusing on a single target do significantly more than that?

Note also that some opponents are not one shotted by 200+ damage. Sure, if you connect, it helps a lot, but it most certainly doesn't guarantee you ruined the DMs plans. I would not consider a build that just does solid melee damage to be particularly high op. Moderate high at most...almost everyone tries to pump damage to some degree, regardless of experience at the game.


Oh, and OP...your player is right. Paladins are not particularly good. WoTC arguably DID jack up the paladin.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Fourth and fifth, to be precise. Posts, that is. Not a funny joke either.

See, I wasn't suggesting it as a joke, but rather attempting to point out that the challenge might not be necessary. A player is playing a class which he feels wasn't well designed, and thus isn't having fun. Rather that demonstrate that someone with better system mastery can make it effective (as the player in question clearly does not have the system mastery he'd need), why not just have the player switch to a class he will probably enjoy more? :smallconfused:

[T.G. Oskar]

See, I wasn't suggesting it as a joke, but rather attempting to point out that the challenge might not be necessary. A player is playing a class which he feels wasn't well designed, and thus isn't having fun. Rather that demonstrate that someone with better system mastery can make it effective (as the player in question clearly does not have the system mastery he'd need), why not just have the player switch to a class he will probably enjoy more? :smallconfused:

Oh, I figure you didn't. Thing is, when Clothed mentioned it, the suggestion was mentioned so many times, hammering it out one more time stopped being funny. Hence; "not a funny joke either". Besides, later on the OP mentions his friend's playing a Cleric, and making an entirely different point; the challenge was pretty specific, so going off the tangent really wasn't necessary.

[Tyndmyr]

Oh, I figure you didn't. Thing is, when Clothed mentioned it, the suggestion was mentioned so many times, hammering it out one more time stopped being funny. Hence; "not a funny joke either". Besides, later on the OP mentions his friend's playing a Cleric, and making an entirely different point; the challenge was pretty specific, so going off the tangent really wasn't necessary.

So...you're saying the OP should just play a crusader? :smallbiggrin:

[T.G. Oskar]

So...you're saying the OP should just play a crusader? :smallbiggrin:

I made my point about good things to play with the Paladin, so not really. Just that making it like if no one else made the suggestion already wasn't funny. Sort of like saying on a Monk thread "play a Unarmed Swordsage" is an unwritten rule.

[AugustNights]

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but if you go with the charging mounted paladin, you may consider playing a small race that does not take a hit to Strength. Why? Because you can ride a medium sized creature such as a dog, in order to traverse areas (such as some dungeons) where large animals cannot normally traverse.

[Coidzor]

+18 to hit. That is very low for a level 10 character. I also see no mention of anti anti charge measures other than flight. It's unreliable.

Yeah, I've got a badly built halfling ranger that's got a +12 to hit at level 5. +18 to hit at 10th level has got to be doing something wrong if it's meant to be hitting things. :smallconfused:

[Basket Burner]

Yeah, I've got a badly built halfling ranger that's got a +12 to hit at level 5. +18 to hit at 10th level has got to be doing something wrong if it's meant to be hitting things. :smallconfused:

As long as we're sharing... +26 to hit. Level 6. But back to the topic. If you really go out of your way to optimize a Paladin they'll do alright, but I think that he is looking for better than alright.

[Heliomance]

Level 10 Wizard: 66 HP. Nah, not dead. Even if he has no defenses, which would be like the sun not being hot.Fine, unconcious and bleeding out. Although I note you've given the wizard 16 con as well, which is not a given. If the wizard had 14 con, which is probably more likely, he'd be dead. Or if he rolled slightly badly on HP, or if the vrocks roll slightly well on DoR. Either way, he's in serious trouble. And the sheer rarity of DoR means he probably doesn't have any specific defences against it.


Why the hurry? It's all three of their actions, for 3 rounds before anything at all happens. If they were instead Fireball slingers of all things, which is the worst thing you can do with enemy arcanists they would be doing more than 20d6, they'd be doing it every round, and when you kill one of them you stop a third of the damage and not all of it.
Psychology, largely. Anticipation is a great technique to induce fear - there's something very scary about damage you can see coming before it hits.


3 rounds is more than enough time to kill the main guy and kill 1 Vrock, neutralizing the encounter with little effort and getting a disproportionally high reward for doing so.
I'm basing this argument off an encounter I ran last week. The bad guy acted before them, and dropped a Nauseating Breath on the whole party. They only just managed to stop the vrocks in time. It was a tense, dangerous, hard fought battle, and they felt good about winning it. What it wasn't was rocket tag.




It is easier for one party member to go before the enemy than for the entire party to go before the enemy. So the enemy gets a turn, and not slowed down in any way does one of the following:

Casts a save or lose on you. Assuming such a clearly weak party, half or three quarters of the party is shut down. Which really puts a damper on those plans to get at his > 0 HP total.
Full attacks someone, either one rounding them or taking them down more than low enough to finish them on round 2.
This is what crowd control is for. Okay, the bad guy isn't dead from the first attack, but the real fight is for battlefield supremacy. The party that best dictates the terms of engagement is the party that will win. Use actual tactics. "I kill it" is not tactics. And before you accuse me again of caster bias, melee characters are entirely capable of dictating the terms of engagement, especially with ToB.


Sure, three people got to look busy - and the entire party suffered for it. Which is why 50 damage is nothing at level 10. It's a throwaway move. Casting a save or die means there is a > 0% chance that you save your party from suffering. Damage dealers that nonetheless only manage a mere 50 points of damage made themselves irrelevant. And that means that it is all up to you, and anyone else that can contribute in a manner appropriate to level 10 characters.

If the enemy saves, then you are no worse off than in the 50 damage scenario. Just that the 50 damage scenario has around a 0% chance of preventing this, whereas the save or die/lose/suck scenario has around a 50-75% chance of preventing this. To put it another way, you encounter it 2-4 times less often. Last I checked, that is a good thing.
I reiterate, if the enemy saves then you are worse off than in a 50 damage scenario. If you do 50 damage, the enemy is 50 damage closer to being defeated. If they save against a SoD, unless it's one of the higher level ones, they are no closer to being defeated.




The point is that combats are going to be finished quickly. They might be finished quickly because the PCs won, or they might be finished quickly because they did not win, but they will be finished quickly. Having encounters die in less than a round means they don't have the chance to kill anyone. Giving them plenty of chances to act, as you suggest gives them plenty of chances to kill everyone. And given that enemies can easily take out a character in 1 or 2 rounds, being unable to kill the enemy before they kill you and being unable to kill the enemy before it gets a turn, while not entirely the same thing are very similar to each other.
Then it's up to you as a DM to make sure that doesn't happen. Don't build encounters that 1- or 2-shot players. Build encounters that inconvenience players, that use smart tactics when they would otherwise be outmatched. Use a flying creature if your party have no range - not one that can kill them easily, obviously, but it will make them think, to try and work out how to win. It's not a threat in that it can kill them outright, it's a threat in that it can do damage to them more easily than they can do damage to it, so it will eventually win if they don't come up with something.


I don't know about you, but I'm happy when the party kills an enemy before it can move. And I mostly DM. Players didn't seem to mind too much either.
No, I'm not particularly happy when that happens. Because it means I might as well have not bothered to stat it up. In fact, why bother with those pesky dice? Why not just go "You encounter an enemy. No, don't bother rolling initiative, you kill it and continue on your way"?




You said something to the effect of that you were not comfortable with chargers and their damage, and that you would prefer Tier 1s to that. I mused on the irony of how a lot of people are biased against non casting characters.
I'm not biased against non-casting characters, I just find their all-or-nothing style to be harder to deal with.




That's why I said that it was beside the point.

Enemies at that level get 2 or 3 attacks. Each. Still feeling good about dying in 3 hits? Keeping in mind at this level AC is well past the point at which it is useful, so being hit is practically a foregone conclusion.
Not if the enemies are power attacking for full, it isn't, which is the only way they're going to be getting enough damage to 3-shot the players.


There is a game writeup somewhere in which the Barbarian is described as a glass cannon and the Wizard is described as a tank. An inexperienced player might conclude that they put the wrong descriptions by those classes. But they were absolutely right.

Fighters, of course have less HP than Barbarians.

As for chargers themselves, as much attention as Shock Trooper gets Leap Attack is more important. Doubling PA ratios > trading to hit penalties for AC penalties. Especially when it is possible to stack to hit to the point where you don't need to do that.

See, it's things like Leap Attack and Shock Trooper that are the problem. Someone, somewhere down the line, decided that the way to fix melee was to make them do more damage. No. That doesn't fix melee. It just exacerbates the problem of them either being useless or making everyone else useless.

[Basket Burner]

Fine, unconcious and bleeding out. Although I note you've given the wizard 16 con as well, which is not a given. If the wizard had 14 con, which is probably more likely, he'd be dead. Or if he rolled slightly badly on HP, or if the vrocks roll slightly well on DoR. Either way, he's in serious trouble. And the sheer rarity of DoR means he probably doesn't have any specific defences against it.

16 Con is the absolute minimum value. To only have 14, he'd have to have gone this long without making himself a Con item. That is not happening. But either way, that means that the 3 CR 9 creatures are doing nothing but 3 rounds but charging up a 20d6 blast, when even entirely unoptimized Fireball slingers would put out 27d6 on round 1, and 27d6 on round 2, and 27d6 on round 3. And if you killed one of them that would nullify a third of the damage every round and not all of it.

Assuming that his group was so horrible that they could not kill the main guy and 1 Vrock when given a whopping three rounds to do so... Dimension Door. Round 3. The Dance of Ruin, it does nothing!

By the way...


At the end of 3 rounds of dancing, a wave of crackling energy flashes outward in a 100-foot radius. All creatures except for demons within the radius take 20d6 points of damage (Reflex DC 18 half). Stunning, paralyzing, or slaying one of the vrocks stops the dance. The save DC is Charisma-based.

DC 18 is nothing at level 10, so passing the save is incredibly easy, if not 95% likely. Whereas even those Fireball slingers would have an equal or better DC. Without even trying.


Psychology, largely. Anticipation is a great technique to induce fear - there's something very scary about damage you can see coming before it hits.

"So something not that bad is about to happen and with plenty of time to prevent it?"

This is many things, but fear is the exact opposite of them.


I'm basing this argument off an encounter I ran last week. The bad guy acted before them, and dropped a Nauseating Breath on the whole party. They only just managed to stop the vrocks in time. It was a tense, dangerous, hard fought battle, and they felt good about winning it. What it wasn't was rocket tag.

Yes, if you deliberately and heavily sandbag encounters you might, sometimes not get rocket tag. Except... you still did because he opened with a save or lose and that is the only reason why this was even remotely memorable.


This is what crowd control is for. Okay, the bad guy isn't dead from the first attack, but the real fight is for battlefield supremacy. The party that best dictates the terms of engagement is the party that will win. Use actual tactics. "I kill it" is not tactics. And before you accuse me again of caster bias, melee characters are entirely capable of dictating the terms of engagement, especially with ToB.

Ah yes, those save or loses you don't like in favor of doing damage that was level appropriate 5 levels ago. And that by your claim at least make damage even less useful. Which it does, but if he hit the enemy like he meant it he would not be useless. He would also be capable of influencing the combat. Which apparently is what you want, yet don't want? *confused*


I reiterate, if the enemy saves then you are worse off than in a 50 damage scenario. If you do 50 damage, the enemy is 50 damage closer to being defeated. If they save against a SoD, unless it's one of the higher level ones, they are no closer to being defeated.

50-75% chance to influence combat > 0% chance to influence combat. If you hit him for 50, he is still alive, still fights at full effectiveness.


Then it's up to you as a DM to make sure that doesn't happen. Don't build encounters that 1- or 2-shot players. Build encounters that inconvenience players, that use smart tactics when they would otherwise be outmatched. Use a flying creature if your party have no range - not one that can kill them easily, obviously, but it will make them think, to try and work out how to win. It's not a threat in that it can kill them outright, it's a threat in that it can do damage to them more easily than they can do damage to it, so it will eventually win if they don't come up with something.

In other words, do not play D&D. Because when you play D&D, you face enemies that kill or otherwise shut down people in 1 or 2 rounds of combat. There are so many of these, and they are so common that you not only have to cherry pick encounters but play them very stupid just to get even one encounter in which this is not true. Like your thing with the Vrocks.


No, I'm not particularly happy when that happens. Because it means I might as well have not bothered to stat it up. In fact, why bother with those pesky dice? Why not just go "You encounter an enemy. No, don't bother rolling initiative, you kill it and continue on your way"?

You are aware that the party is supposed to win right? That doesn't mean they get victory on a silver platter, but it does mean that if they blow the guy away before he moves, then that is what happens. Which is why when I design an enemy and it is one rounded I am just as satisfied with the outcome as my cheering players.


I'm not biased against non-casting characters, I just find their all-or-nothing style to be harder to deal with.

The thing is, that is being biased against them because they are one trick ponies.


Not if the enemies are power attacking for full, it isn't, which is the only way they're going to be getting enough damage to 3-shot the players.

If they PA for full they kill in 1-2 hits, but probably don't hit 95% of the time anymore. 3 hits is with 0 PA. Enemies at that level hit for about 30 without trying. 30 is just high enough to 3 shot the 89 HP Fighter. Generic, unoptimized, slightly weak enemies. One level lower. 3 hits, you drop.


See, it's things like Leap Attack and Shock Trooper that are the problem. Someone, somewhere down the line, decided that the way to fix melee was to make them do more damage. No. That doesn't fix melee. It just exacerbates the problem of them either being useless or making everyone else useless.

No, those things are exactly the solution. Melee damage scales slowly. Enemy HP scales quickly. Only the last HP matters. For HP damage to keep up, it must also scale quickly. Leap Attack helps immensely with this. So does Shock Trooper, but despite all the hype Leap Attack makes more of a difference than Shock Trooper.

Meanwhile enemy damage scales quickly, so they are quite capable of swinging a weapon at you. You just cannot return the favor to give as good as you get.

[Worira]

200 damage is irrelevant now? Well, it's the kind of irrelevant that two-shots a Balor, so that's kind of an interesting definition of relevance you've got there. This isn't Magic, damage doesn't just get cleared off the monsters after every attack.

[Basket Burner]

200 damage is irrelevant now? Well, it's the kind of irrelevant that two-shots a Balor, so that's kind of an interesting definition of relevance you've got there. This isn't Magic, damage doesn't just get cleared off the monsters after every attack.

At level 20? Yes. Because you get an opportunity to attack the Balor, and you do so, and you do not kill it. That means it gets another round to do whatever it wants to you. Weakest CR 20 or no weakest CR 20, it's better than some HP damage. Balors are also the lowest HP enemies at that level, having HP totals that were level appropriate 5 levels ago. Everything else, except Pit Fiends has much higher.

[Worira]

No it doesn't, because you have party members. Those party members also have pointy sticks with which to hit the Balor.

[Basket Burner]

No it doesn't, because you have party members. Those party members also have pointy sticks with which to hit the Balor.

So the rest of the party is just as weak as you? Better hope they all win initiative, and get in those rare chances to actually attack a level 20, spellcasting opponent.

...Alternately, you could raise your damage to a level 20 level, so that you can threaten level 20 things. And then the rest of the party can be capable of doing their jobs. And the party can defeat level 20 things, instead of either being defeated by them or only succeeding because at least some of the party is able to contribute.

[Saint GoH]

This might not be helpful to the OP's original question, but you could always try Jarian's Warcraft Paladin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187214&highlight=Paladin). Since it's a pretty direct translation it works out okay... a lot of various moves to look over and some calculator work needed, but it IS just like the WoW Paladin (because... well... it is.)

[Heliomance]

16 Con is the absolute minimum value. To only have 14, he'd have to have gone this long without making himself a Con item. That is not happening.
Really? No level 10 wizard will ever have less than 16 Con? That's funny, one of my friends ran a wizard in a long-running campaign that had 4 Con. Managed not to die for the entire thing, as well. I guess I'll have to tell him that he was imagining that game, it couldn't possibly have happened.

But either way, that means that the 3 CR 9 creatures are doing nothing but 3 rounds but charging up a 20d6 blast, when even entirely unoptimized Fireball slingers would put out 27d6 on round 1, and 27d6 on round 2, and 27d6 on round 3. And if you killed one of them that would nullify a third of the damage every round and not all of it.

Assuming that his group was so horrible that they could not kill the main guy and 1 Vrock when given a whopping three rounds to do so... Dimension Door. Round 3. The Dance of Ruin, it does nothing!
Wait, so every member of the party is supposed to have Dimension Door now?


By the way...



DC 18 is nothing at level 10, so passing the save is incredibly easy, if not 95% likely. Whereas even those Fireball slingers would have an equal or better DC. Without even trying.
Easy for a Rogue, yes. A pure classed Fighter or Wizard though? They'll likely have a reflex save of +4 or so. And who takes Fighter or Wizard 10? Multiclassing will make it even lower.




"So something not that bad is about to happen and with plenty of time to prevent it?"

This is many things, but fear is the exact opposite of them.
"If we haven't killed a vrock in three rounds time, we're all going to get crippled/killed" is more like it. 20d6 damage is NEVER a pittance. Maybe the fireballs would do more damage, but the point is not to do damage. You're not actually trying to kill the PCs, after all. The point is to intimidate them. Dance of Ruin does that quite nicely, especially if you make killing one of those vrocks hard.




Yes, if you deliberately and heavily sandbag encounters you might, sometimes not get rocket tag. Except... you still did because he opened with a save or lose and that is the only reason why this was even remotely memorable.
Y'know, by the name, you'd expect a save or lose to make the party lose if they failed the save. That didn't actually happen. Maybe "Save or Lose" isn't the right term. Perhaps "Save or have your life made a lot harder" would be more accurate.

Less catchy, though.




Ah yes, those save or loses you don't like in favor of doing damage that was level appropriate 5 levels ago. And that by your claim at least make damage even less useful. Which it does, but if he hit the enemy like he meant it he would not be useless. He would also be capable of influencing the combat. Which apparently is what you want, yet don't want? *confused*
Not as confused as I am after reading that. Seriously, what?




50-75% chance to influence combat > 0% chance to influence combat. If you hit him for 50, he is still alive, still fights at full effectiveness.
{self scrubbed}

Once again, he is that much closer to dying by someone else's hand. Why do you not think this relevant?


In other words, do not play D&D. Because when you play D&D, you face enemies that kill or otherwise shut down people in 1 or 2 rounds of combat. There are so many of these, and they are so common that you not only have to cherry pick encounters but play them very stupid just to get even one encounter in which this is not true. Like your thing with the Vrocks.
I guess my entire ~70 person gaming society is doing it wrong then, because that's never been my experience. Funny how every DM I've ever played under has managed to avoid the rocket tag thing, if it's so fundamental to D&D.




You are aware that the party is supposed to win right? That doesn't mean they get victory on a silver platter, but it does mean that if they blow the guy away before he moves, then that is what happens. Which is why when I design an enemy and it is one rounded I am just as satisfied with the outcome as my cheering players.
Yeah, the party is supposed to win. if they blow the bad guy away with their first action, though, that is in fact being handed victory on a silver platter. They should have to work for their victory. An encounter they kill before he moves, if it's a regular thing and not someone pulling out all the stops out of fear, is utterly forgettable. What is there to distinguish between the seventh and the twelfth enemy that just exploded? How long will the players keep on talking about the tenth time this game Urist McBerserker sliced an enemy's head off before anyone else acted? The first time he does it, sure. But the fifth? The tenth?




The thing is, that is being biased against them because they are one trick ponies.
No, it's because they're one trick ponies whose single trick renders everyone else irrelevant. D&D characters need to play well with others. It's a team game.




If they PA for full they kill in 1-2 hits, but probably don't hit 95% of the time anymore. 3 hits is with 0 PA. Enemies at that level hit for about 30 without trying. 30 is just high enough to 3 shot the 89 HP Fighter. Generic, unoptimized, slightly weak enemies. One level lower. 3 hits, you drop.
You're being inconsistent here. You're arguing that the PCs should be able to do 200+ damage easily, then you're saying that 30 damage from a monster is high. Which is it? IMO, 30 damage is absolutely fine. Why is three-shotting the fighter respectable, and 3-shotting an enemy not?




No, those things are exactly the solution. Melee damage scales slowly. Enemy HP scales quickly. Only the last HP matters. For HP damage to keep up, it must also scale quickly. Leap Attack helps immensely with this. So does Shock Trooper, but despite all the hype Leap Attack makes more of a difference than Shock Trooper.

Meanwhile enemy damage scales quickly, so they are quite capable of swinging a weapon at you. You just cannot return the favor to give as good as you get.
When was the last time you played a CRPG where you could one-shot level appropriate enemies from mid to high levels? Melee damage scaling slower than HP is absolutely fine. High level fights should not be over in under a round. This is my entire point.

[Coidzor]

Really? No level 10 wizard will ever have less than 16 Con? That's funny, one of my friends ran a wizard in a long-running campaign that had 4 Con. Managed not to die for the entire thing, as well. I guess I'll have to tell him that he was imagining that game, it couldn't possibly have happened.

Sure, it's do-able, but it's still a horrible idea.

[Silva Stormrage]

Hey I am not that good at optimizing paladins (liked pathfinder's version not the 3.5 version) but I can suggest this for your friend.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187214
Its the WoW version of paladin in 3.5 form :smallbiggrin:

[Andion Isurand]

To help reduce MAD, there's always the Serenity feat from the Dragon Compendium, which allows a paladin to base his Turning, Lay On Hands and Divine Grace abilities off Wisdom instead of Charisma IIRC

Combined with 2-3 lvls of Prestige Paladin + Battle Blessing feat + Cloistered Cleric using Divine Power... and what have you, that might prove decent...

...plus if you are using an ACF in place of the special mount, I doubt Mounted Combat would remain a prerequisite for such a prestige paladin.

...plus you'd get back the armor and shield proficiencies you gave up as a Cloistered Cleric.
_________________________

Also, in WoW-related homebrew, I've been tinkering with the Eredar race (http://andionisurand.blogspot.com/2011/10/eredar-race.html). (Draenei)

[Basket Burner]

This is very simple to understand.


Really? No level 10 wizard will ever have less than 16 Con? That's funny, one of my friends ran a wizard in a long-running campaign that had 4 Con. Managed not to die for the entire thing, as well. I guess I'll have to tell him that he was imagining that game, it couldn't possibly have happened.

Anyone who does not want to die will, yes. There is also no reason not to. So he made a character that would die from a light breeze, and the wind did not blow. That's nice and all, but it doesn't mean anything.


Wait, so every member of the party is supposed to have Dimension Door now?

The Wizard is. At that level it is self + at least 3 others. The default party size is 4.


Easy for a Rogue, yes. A pure classed Fighter or Wizard though? They'll likely have a reflex save of +4 or so. And who takes Fighter or Wizard 10? Multiclassing will make it even lower.

+4 to a save, any save at level 10? The only way that would even remotely be possible is if you are deliberately attempting to sabotage your character. Even if the base save is around +4, you also get Dex, and items, and buffs, and many other things. +16 at level 10? Very easy. For anyone. Now if it were DC 28 then only the Rogue would have a decent success chance out of those three. But it isn't.

Here is a thought exercise for you.

Reflex saves: 9, 6, 12, 10, 9, 12, 12, 10, 5, 7, 6, 7, 11, 5, 4, 17, 12, 11, 10, 12, 10, 12. Now here is my question to you. What level are these characters? I will give you a hint. It's a single digit number in all cases.


"If we haven't killed a vrock in three rounds time, we're all going to get crippled/killed" is more like it. 20d6 damage is NEVER a pittance. Maybe the fireballs would do more damage, but the point is not to do damage. You're not actually trying to kill the PCs, after all. The point is to intimidate them. Dance of Ruin does that quite nicely, especially if you make killing one of those vrocks hard.

Except that it is, because even a much lower level encounter could do 20d6 damage in 3 rounds. It is this that prevents it from being scary at all. Killing one Vrock would have about the same difficulty as killing one Fireball slinger. Except that it would stop the whole trick, instead of there still being two mages throwing Fireballs.


Y'know, by the name, you'd expect a save or lose to make the party lose if they failed the save. That didn't actually happen. Maybe "Save or Lose" isn't the right term. Perhaps "Save or have your life made a lot harder" would be more accurate.

Less catchy, though.

Call it what you will. Nauseated = can't take Standard actions. That is as good as dead. The only reason they did not actually die is because the encounter was sandbagging.


Not as confused as I am after reading that. Seriously, what?

"Ah yes, those save or loses you don't like in favor of doing damage that was level appropriate 5 levels ago. And that by your claim at least make damage even less useful. Which it does, but if he hit the enemy like he meant it he would not be useless. He would also be capable of influencing the combat. Which apparently is what you want, yet don't want? *confused*"

The save or loses (nauseating breath or whatever it was) was the only real threat in that fight. Yet you complain that you do not like save or loses, and that they make damage even less useful.
50 damage = level appropriate at level 5. You are level 10. 10 - 5 = 5. 5 levels ago.
If he hit the enemy like you meant it, which means doing far more than 50 damage at level 10 then damage would not be useless, and it would not be "made" useless by someone doing something that does help (the damage rendered itself useless of course, nothing else did that for it).
You frequently contradict yourself about what you want.


Once again, he is that much closer to dying by someone else's hand. Why do you not think this relevant?

Close doesn't count. If his turn comes up, and he has 100, or 10, or 1 HP left, he still gets to do whatever he wants to you. And if that kills you, the enemy wins. You did not influence the combat at all.


I guess my entire ~70 person gaming society is doing it wrong then, because that's never been my experience. Funny how every DM I've ever played under has managed to avoid the rocket tag thing, if it's so fundamental to D&D.

Extreme sandbagging is not typical.


Yeah, the party is supposed to win. if they blow the bad guy away with their first action, though, that is in fact being handed victory on a silver platter. They should have to work for their victory. An encounter they kill before he moves, if it's a regular thing and not someone pulling out all the stops out of fear, is utterly forgettable. What is there to distinguish between the seventh and the twelfth enemy that just exploded? How long will the players keep on talking about the tenth time this game Urist McBerserker sliced an enemy's head off before anyone else acted? The first time he does it, sure. But the fifth? The tenth?

Or it is playing D&D. To get to that point you need, at the minimum a very high Init (as in 20s, 30s, or even better) on everyone, and you need everyone having some super attack, and you need for those attacks to work. Interestingly enough, properly designed encounters have very high saves. So even then, it comes down to getting lucky on top of that.

Over the course of 20 levels, you're going to fight around 250 battles. Not all of them will be remarkable. It happens.


No, it's because they're one trick ponies whose single trick renders everyone else irrelevant. D&D characters need to play well with others. It's a team game.

As opposed to the alternative, in which they cannot contribute to the team, as opposed to contributing by helping to kill things before they kill you?


You're being inconsistent here. You're arguing that the PCs should be able to do 200+ damage easily, then you're saying that 30 damage from a monster is high. Which is it? IMO, 30 damage is absolutely fine. Why is three-shotting the fighter respectable, and 3-shotting an enemy not?

It is not at all inconsistent. It is very simple to understand why it is not inconsistent, but I will explain it to you anyways.

The 10th level Fighter has 89 HP. If an enemy does 30 damage to him, he dies in 3 hits. 9th level enemies do manage to do 30 damage per hit, and they also get 2 attacks per round each. The Fighter dies very very quickly. On the flip side, those enemies, despite being a level lower have substantially higher than 89 HP. 133 in this example, and that is about the average for enemies at level 9. Of course it goes up rapidly from there. That is also per enemy. So assuming that such a Fighter was able to do 200+ damage easily, he would still need 2 rounds to kill a mere 2 of these guys, and that gives them up to 6 chances to get the 3 hits necessary to take him out. Still not very good odds, but far better than if he were stuck 3 rounding (not 3 hitting, but 3 rounding) just one of them.

In short, PCs must do more damage because they have more HP to chop through. Enemies don't have nearly as many HP in their way, and their default damage is a lot better, proportionally speaking.


When was the last time you played a CRPG where you could one-shot level appropriate enemies from mid to high levels? Melee damage scaling slower than HP is absolutely fine. High level fights should not be over in under a round. This is my entire point.

When is the last time I haven't? Hm, let me think...

Diablo 2: Nope, can mow down level appropriate enemies in one hit easily with any decent caster build, often on higher /players settings which raises their HP.

Titan Quest: Nope, can mow down level appropriate enemies in one hit easily with any decent build of any type. Often several times over.

Final Fantasy Tactics: Nope, all of my units do enough damage to one shot anything, often two or even three times over. Many of the enemies can also one shot my units, which makes this the closest example to D&D.

All melee damage (of PCs only) scaling slower than enemy HP means is that non casting PCs cease to matter. That is it. That is the only impact it has. It doesn't stop generic, stock enemies a level lower from doing 30 a hit and 2 attacks. It doesn't stop combat from being over quickly. It just stops non casters from having any meaningful participation in it.

[Heliomance]

Fighter 10 has a base reflex save of +3. Most fighter builds - there are exceptions, I'll admit - have little reason to have a dex score higher than 12. Thus a total reflex save of +4. Most games don't feature Monty Haul amounts of loot, and you can't guarantee having exactly the items you want, so there's a very good chance you won't have any resistance items. That's not "deliberately sabotaging your character", that's average play.

There is absolutely no way that 50 damage is appropriate at level 5. Not even slightly. That's ludicrous.

I'm not contradicting myself over what I want at all. What I want is interesting fights where everyone gets to act and contribute, and that last longer than half a round. I don't mind exactly how they happen.

If you do damage to someone and don't kill them, and then your friend does similar damage to them and does kill them, you contributed meaningfully to the encounter. They couldn't have killed the enemy if you hadn't hurt them first. If the bad guy uses his first turn to end the entire party, you as a GM are doing it very, very wrong.


As opposed to the alternative, in which they cannot contribute to the team, as opposed to contributing by helping to kill things before they kill you?

You're not advocating helping to kill things. You're advocating killing things single handedly, or not bothering. There's a difference.

The Order of the Stick is a lot closer to the average power level of players than you're advocating. Do you ever see them obliterate any of their meaningful encounters before they get a chance to act? No. Because that doesn't make for a good story. And D&D is, above all else, about creating a story.

Anyway, I'm getting bored of this argument. A certain Monty Python sketch springs to mind. You're not going to change my mind, and apparently I'm not going to change yours, so how about we just drop the whole thing before the mods come and smack us?

[RelentlessImp]

The Order of the Stick is a lot closer to the average power level of players than you're advocating. Do you ever see them obliterate any of their meaningful encounters before they get a chance to act? No. Because that doesn't make for a good story. And D&D is, above all else, about creating a story.


Ahem. Vaarsuvius disintegrates a young adult black dragon in two spells, after making it his slave through suggestion. Earlier, evard's spiked tentacles of forced intrusion ends a battle with a chimera.

And let's not forget a more recent encounter in which a simple charm person spell destroys Vaarsuvius's counter-build Zz'dtri.

So, the answer to your question is: Yes. At least twice, off the top of my head.

If you mean something by "meaningful" other than "affects and/or progresses the plot", then no, they were pretty much throwaway encounters and side quest fodder, and delicious chunks of experience. But you know, not every combat's gotta be meaningful in any other way.

[Heliomance]

Ahem. Vaarsuvius disintegrates a young adult black dragon in two spells, after making it his slave through suggestion. Earlier, evard's spiked tentacles of forced intrusion ends a battle with a chimera.

And let's not forget a more recent encounter in which a simple charm person spell destroys Vaarsuvius's counter-build Zz'dtri.

So, the answer to your question is: Yes. At least twice, off the top of my head.

If you mean something by "meaningful" other than "affects and/or progresses the plot", then no, they were pretty much throwaway encounters and side quest fodder, and delicious chunks of experience. But you know, not every combat's gotta be meaningful in any other way.

I'll grant you the Chimera. The dragon took a while for him to be able to do that, though. And as for the Charm Person, again, it didn't win the fight immediately through heavy optimisation. It took strategy, thinking outside the box, and still took several rounds after the spell was cast to win the fight. Also, as a one-on-one fight, the situation is slightly different. And that's one to three fights, depending on how you count it. How many fights have they been in over the course of the strip? Rather a lot more than three. Destroying the enemy in a single action is not par for the course.

[RelentlessImp]

The dragon took a while for him to be able to do that, though.

It took casting the spell three times, and then an entire night for the rest of the party to sit down, shut up and dispel the baleful polymorph from him. The next morning, when he had prepared spells, it took no time at all - and if he'd been there from the beginning of the fight, it probably would have turned out the exact same way.

Fights are drawn out in a comic strip for the same reason they're drawn out in a novel - it's not exciting to read "He cast a spell, the fight was over". As always, OotS should not be taken as a freaking rules stick to measure actual D&D with, because it is a story and stories take liberties with the system they're told in. Collaborative storytelling, that is, the act of sitting down and playing D&D, may do this every so often, but it's still played within the confines of the actual system. The game they play in OotS? It's based around making fun of D&D and the system while telling a story.

If you actually tried to play an OotS game in 3.5 rules, as written, the Vaarsuvius characters would, in fact, dominate. So long as they didn't ban the wrong schools, as V has.

If you want a comic to show you what playing an optimized D&D game is actually like, I refer you to Another Gaming Comic (http://agc.deskslave.org), which tells the story of people playing D&D and their optimized adventures. The writer and artist is a person knowledgeable about 2nd Edition and 3.5, and even has character sheets for his characters' 3.5 parties, which are all legit and above-board (save for the early entry trick on a Mystic Theurge).

Go read it. Reference the rules as they come up. Read his Gaming Excerpts, as the comic grew out of those. You'll see what playing D&D, by the actual rules, is like, and how badly classes like Fighter and Paladin need to optimize to keep up. I think you'll see that the game you envision to be D&D is not the D&D as it's written.

As has been said before on this board, and many others, don't bring in your personal experiences and expect them to be taken as gospel. The rules don't back them up. Other people's experiences are going to be wildly different. And 50 damage at level 5 is optimized, and is the only way a beatstick manages to equalize to a level 5 Wizard.

[Basket Burner]

Fighter 10 has a base reflex save of +3. Most fighter builds - there are exceptions, I'll admit - have little reason to have a dex score higher than 12. Thus a total reflex save of +4. Most games don't feature Monty Haul amounts of loot, and you can't guarantee having exactly the items you want, so there's a very good chance you won't have any resistance items. That's not "deliberately sabotaging your character", that's average play.

At that level, every party member has 49k in shiny magic items. Resistance items are a very common item, both in terms of their availability and in terms of people wanting them. These facts are related, as killing people will tend to get you some. So to get to level 10, and have absolutely none of them is not "average play". It is not even close. It is a game in which the DM is actively choosing to shaft non spellcasting characters.

On top of that most basic of things, there are all manner of buffs that boost saves.

At level 10, +14 is the absolute minimum number that you will see from any decent character. The other 10 of that comes from the things I mention. To only have +4, you would have to be deliberately sabotaging your character as nearly everything that boosts saves boosts all three of them. Which means if the not so important Reflex save is a pathetic +4, then the much more important Fortitude and Will saves are not that much better.


There is absolutely no way that 50 damage is appropriate at level 5. Not even slightly. That's ludicrous.

It's barely appropriate, but it is. Enemy HP scale up FAST.


I'm not contradicting myself over what I want at all. What I want is interesting fights where everyone gets to act and contribute, and that last longer than half a round. I don't mind exactly how they happen.

That means giving the enemy a chance to move. Good luck with that. Especially when you're running around with horrible saves. Interestingly enough, well made characters don't automatically drop dead when they lose initiative. They're dead on round 2, but not 1.


If you do damage to someone and don't kill them, and then your friend does similar damage to them and does kill them, you contributed meaningfully to the encounter. They couldn't have killed the enemy if you hadn't hurt them first. If the bad guy uses his first turn to end the entire party, you as a GM are doing it very, very wrong.

50 + 50 = 100.

100 < level 10 enemy HP.

Nope, I'm afraid you still accomplished nothing, even with two PCs going first. And with your terrible saves, and likely terrible other stats stemming from apparently having weak/no magic items, saying that the enemy will blow the entire party away in a single round (as opposed to maybe killing one person) is actually a reasonable assumption.


You're not advocating helping to kill things. You're advocating killing things single handedly, or not bothering. There's a difference.

HP damage is all or nothing.


The Order of the Stick is a lot closer to the average power level of players than you're advocating. Do you ever see them obliterate any of their meaningful encounters before they get a chance to act? No. Because that doesn't make for a good story. And D&D is, above all else, about creating a story.

Single author fiction has no basis in D&D, even if it is supposedly based on D&D rules. Especially if it is actually.


Anyway, I'm getting bored of this argument. A certain Monty Python sketch springs to mind. You're not going to change my mind, and apparently I'm not going to change yours, so how about we just drop the whole thing before the mods come and smack us?

You are welcome to forfeit the argument. Just as long as you make it clear that is what you are doing.

[Gotterdammerung]

It's an argument between a soulless mathlete and a Diehard Roleplayer. No one will ever win this argument because you are both right. You are just right from different perspectives.

[RelentlessImp]

It's an argument between a soulless mathlete and a Diehard Roleplayer. No one will ever win this argument because you are both right. You are just right from different perspectives.

Stormwind much?

[Anarchy_Kanya]

Stormwind much?
I don't get it.

[Gotterdammerung]

It is a throwback to a WotC forum discussion where this guy Tempest Stormwind basically made the point that a character who is optimized for combat is not necessarily a poorly written roleplay character. Spurned much discussion between the ROLLplay and the ROLEplay camps.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

This I know, but I don't get what does it have to do with what he quoted.

[RelentlessImp]

This I know, but I don't get what does it have to do with what he quoted.

It's the fact that he's differentiating between them for one guy doing the math and optimizing around it while calling the other a roleplayer. It's the whole divorce of roleplaying and rollplaying all over again.

Edit: Kanya, are you following me? You're on every forum I post on now. :/

[Anarchy_Kanya]

It's the fact that he's differentiating between them for one guy doing the math and optimizing around it while calling the other a roleplayer. It's the whole divorce of roleplaying and rollplaying all over again.
But he's just saying that they won't come to an agreement because one is just talking about numbers and the other about roleplaying. How is this Stormwind Fallacy? :smallconfused:


Edit: Kanya, are you following me? You're on every forum I post on now. :/
Don't flatter yourself. How was I supposed to know that you're posting here knowing this boards reputation on BG? :smallconfused:

[RelentlessImp]

But he's just saying that they won't come to an agreement because one is just talking about numbers and the other about roleplaying. How is this Stormwind Fallacy? :smallconfused:

It isn't, not directly. But it touches upon the outer edges of it by directly defining the two of them as being on opposite ends of the argument - one for math, one for roleplaying.

In other words, it's close enough for a pithy little mocking quote.



Don't flatter yourself. How was I supposed to know that you're posting here knowing this boards reputation on BG? :smallconfused:

Considering about 90% of BG actually still posts here while mocking it on BG? It's an amusing side-forum. Just watch all the trainwrecks, all day, every day.

[Hiro Protagonest]

But he's just saying that they won't come to an agreement because one is just talking about numbers and the other about roleplaying. How is this Stormwind Fallacy? :smallconfused:

He's saying the one who doesn't optimize roleplays while the one that does optimize doesn't roleplay at all.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

He's saying the one who doesn't optimize roleplays while the one that does optimize doesn't roleplay at all.
Uh... no? I can't read minds, so we will have to wait for him to clarify, but that's not what I see in his post. :smallconfused:

[Gotterdammerung]

Uh... no? I can't read minds, so we will have to wait for him to clarify, but that's not what I see in his post. :smallconfused:

Clarifying. Kanya correctly took my meaning. And yes it was close enough to be pithy about it.

While an optimized character can be retroactively justified by role-play, there is definitely 2 camps of people. They both have different perspectives, and they are both right in those perspectives.




On my own personal note, I am from a third camp. I see that every single character can be countered. And because of this, there is no "strongest character". There is only strong parties. And in my experience, the "strongest" parties, have always been the ones that focused more on synergy and covering each others weaknesses. Instead of 6 random people forced together each individually trying to be as all powerful as they can be.

[Heliomance]

At that level, every party member has 49k in shiny magic items. Resistance items are a very common item, both in terms of their availability and in terms of people wanting them. These facts are related, as killing people will tend to get you some. So to get to level 10, and have absolutely none of them is not "average play". It is not even close. It is a game in which the DM is actively choosing to shaft non spellcasting characters.

On top of that most basic of things, there are all manner of buffs that boost saves.

At level 10, +14 is the absolute minimum number that you will see from any decent character. The other 10 of that comes from the things I mention. To only have +4, you would have to be deliberately sabotaging your character as nearly everything that boosts saves boosts all three of them. Which means if the not so important Reflex save is a pathetic +4, then the much more important Fortitude and Will saves are not that much better.
I'm really not sure where you're getting +10 to your saves from. I wouldn't expect to see higher than a +4 cloak of resistance at level 10, where's the other 6 coming from?






Nope, I'm afraid you still accomplished nothing, even with two PCs going first. And with your terrible saves, and likely terrible other stats stemming from apparently having weak/no magic items, saying that the enemy will blow the entire party away in a single round (as opposed to maybe killing one person) is actually a reasonable assumption.
Not really. As a DM, it's your job to provide an encounter appropriate to the power level of your PCs. If your bad guy blows them away in one go, you got it wrong. Yes, I could come up with an encounter that would utterly wreck my PCs, that would kill them all and there'd be nothing they could do about it. I could do it level appropriate, too. But I won't, because that's no fun.




HP damage is all or nothing.
HP damage is not all or nothing. See? I can state opinion as fact too!


You are welcome to forfeit the argument. Just as long as you make it clear that is what you are doing.
Ahahahahaha. No. Deciding not to try and talk to someone who refuses to listen is not forfeiting the argument.

I will admit that I'm not stopping very effectively, though.



If you want a comic to show you what playing an optimized D&D game is actually like, I refer you to Another Gaming Comic (http://agc.deskslave.org), which tells the story of people playing D&D and their optimized adventures. The writer and artist is a person knowledgeable about 2nd Edition and 3.5, and even has character sheets for his characters' 3.5 parties, which are all legit and above-board (save for the early entry trick on a Mystic Theurge).

Go read it. Reference the rules as they come up. Read his Gaming Excerpts, as the comic grew out of those. You'll see what playing D&D, by the actual rules, is like, and how badly classes like Fighter and Paladin need to optimize to keep up. I think you'll see that the game you envision to be D&D is not the D&D as it's written.
I read AGC regularly. You know what? I don't remember many of their fights where the bad guy never got to act, either. I would also note that they're currently playing at, what, level 13 I think? And Jill is doing an average of 60-70 points of damage. A far cry off 200.


He's saying the one who doesn't optimize roleplays while the one that does optimize doesn't roleplay at all.
Actually, I count myself an optimiser. I love the puzzle of TO, the mental challenge of seeing what the rules will let you get away with. I also know not to take too much of it into a real game.

EDIT: I'm taking this argument too seriously, and I have no desire to get an infraction - which I would, if I expressed my arguments in the terms I want to. So I'm going to try and stop here.

[RelentlessImp]

HP damage is not all or nothing. See? I can state opinion as fact too!


Sorry, I have to tell you you're objectively wrong here. HP is a binary switch in D&D. This is not Shadowrun, where you start accumulating Wound Penalties for every 3 boxes of Stun or Lethal damage. This is D&D. As long as you have 1 hitpoint, you're good to go. It's when you hit 0 or less that you're finally stopped.

So yes, HP damage is, in fact, all or nothing - in that, if you've still got 1HP, you can still whip out everything you have at full efficiency.



I read AGC regularly. You know what? I don't remember many of their fights where the bad guy never got to act, either. I would also note that they're currently playing at, what, level 13 I think? And Jill is doing an average of 60-70 points of damage. A far cry off 200.


Jill is built as a survivor, not a damage dealer. She's also not using everything the Warshaper has, like getting lots of natural attacks. Note how Bateman just casually smacks out 42 damage in one swing. Full attack sneak attack would let him break 200, easy.

Edit: Obviously, if he was optimized a little better for sneak attack progression and attacks, rather than BAB + Sneak Attack.

[Coidzor]

It's an argument between a soulless mathlete and a Diehard Roleplayer. No one will ever win this argument because you are both right. You are just right from different perspectives.


It is a throwback to a WotC forum discussion where this guy Tempest Stormwind basically made the point that a character who is optimized for combat is not necessarily a poorly written roleplay character. Spurned much discussion between the ROLLplay and the ROLEplay camps.

Considering that ROLLplay is a slur generally used to make No True Roleplayer arguments, I take it you believe it's not a fallacy then?

I'd argue that the paradigm-fail of making no true roleplayer arguments would taint whatever rightness there was in the other points the "roleplayer" side was making.

[Basket Burner]

Right... well back to the matter at hand then.

I am observing a game in which one character does an average of 120 damage a round, and 2 others average about 80 damage a round each. The group is level 6. Interestingly enough, the party lost. The main reason why they lost? They weren't killing things fast enough. Now granted, that was because of a combination of inability to get into position to deal out that damage, instead doing a much lower number and being countered by one thing or another from terrain to bad luck but the moral of this story is that if you do low damage (and the amount of damage that was actually dealt was low), then you lose if HP damage is your thing. And the amount of damage that was actually getting through? Much less than 50 a round per person, on average. In other words, the numbers that are supposedly fine.


I'm really not sure where you're getting +10 to your saves from. I wouldn't expect to see higher than a +4 cloak of resistance at level 10, where's the other 6 coming from?

In that example: +3 resistance from a cloak or the greater resistance spell, +4 morale from mass conviction, +3 luck from recitation. Standard in any decent party, so that everyone doesn't get destroyed by Fort and Will effects (Ref is just an added bonus).


Not really. As a DM, it's your job to provide an encounter appropriate to the power level of your PCs. If your bad guy blows them away in one go, you got it wrong. Yes, I could come up with an encounter that would utterly wreck my PCs, that would kill them all and there'd be nothing they could do about it. I could do it level appropriate, too. But I won't, because that's no fun.

A level 10 non caster, without proper magic item access. There is no encounter that is appropriate for him, because he is nowhere near level appropriate. Just random unoptimized stuff would slap them around all over the field. There is no effort involved. Either in boosting the enemy, or in the player making their character not die to a stiff breeze.


HP damage is not all or nothing. See? I can state opinion as fact too!

Enemy has [number of HP that is > 0]. Enemy is just fine, fights at full effectiveness. That is a fact. Contrast to your denial, that flies in the face of facts, and your subsequent dismissal that is just insulting.


Ahahahahaha. No. Deciding not to try and talk to someone who refuses to listen is not forfeiting the argument.

I am listening to you just fine. That is how I know that your points are entirely invalid. For you see, listening is not the same as accepting false statements as true.

[Gotterdammerung]

Considering that ROLLplay is a slur generally used to make No True Roleplayer arguments, I take it you believe it's not a fallacy then?

I'd argue that the paradigm-fail of making no true roleplayer arguments would taint whatever rightness there was in the other points the "roleplayer" side was making.

Rollplay is a descriptive term. It refers to a player who focuses more heavily on the mechanical aspect of the game. You can take it as an insult if you want to. But I hardly see how that has anything to do with me.

It is called the "No True Scotsman" argument. There is no need to replace Scotsman with a relevant term. And all the argument does is show the fallacy of using universal claims to describe generalizations. It does not make generalizations invalid. Here is an example. If i said "All kids like ice cream" you could say "my cousin is a kid an he doesn't like ice cream". You have now made my statement invalid. If I were using the No True Scotsman approach I would then reply "Well, every normal kid likes ice cream." In reality I haven't defended my standpoint. But, I could of avoided the whole situation by saying "Most kids like ice cream." The statement most kids like ice cream is a generalization. And it is valid. It was the subtext or sentiment of the original universal claim. And even in the original scenario the "No true scotsman" argument did nothing to hurt it's validity.

As for my personal belief on the matter, I believe that it is possible to focus on math and optimization for character creation and then focus on role-play for game sessions.

However, I also believe that many players focus only on the math, completely disregarding role-play, and then shout "Stormwind!" when you call them twinks.

[RelentlessImp]

However, I also believe that many players focus only on the math, completely disregarding role-play, and then shout "Stormwind!" when you call them twinks.

I can pretty much agree with your views, except for this part, this part right here.

I want you to go find a practically optimized character and read their backstory. I'll wait.

Found one? Okay. Here's the thing:

Any real optimizer, once they're done putting the numbers together, now has to justify everything they just created. This typically means a deeper, more involved backstory than someone who threw a character together inside of five minutes while having pages upon pages of backstory.

The next "cheese-monster" you see, look at the backstory. Give a nice, thorough read. Now go look at the people who haven't optimized as heavily. You will see a massive discrepancy between them.

We've been talking about optimizers, not munchkins. And people who come down on the "ROLEplayer" side of the argument, as you put it, are the first to start screaming about how ROLLplayers can't ROLEplay. And these screams typically start when they see how much more effective the Practically Optimized character is in combat than their character is.

[Gotterdammerung]

Any real optimizer, once they're done putting the numbers together, now has to justify everything they just created.

Thank you for the absolutely perfect example of a "No True Scotsman" argument.

[RelentlessImp]

Thank you for the absolutely perfect example of a "No True Scotsman" argument.

Thank you for not bothering to read the rest of the post. :)

[Anarchy_Kanya]

The next "cheese-monster" you see, look at the backstory. Give a nice, thorough read. Now go look at the people who haven't optimized as heavily. You will see a massive discrepancy between them.
Stormwind much?

[RelentlessImp]

Stormwind much?

Let's see. I'm advocating that roleplaying and optimization can and often do go together, whereas he was saying they're completely separate sides of the issue.

Yeah, completely similar situation, I agree.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

Let's see. I'm advocating that roleplaying and optimization can and often do go together, whereas he was saying they're completely separate sides of the issue.

Yeah, completely similar situation, I agree.
Nope. You're saying that "real optimizers" always make superb backstories, because they must "justify their choices" and "roleplayers" have worse backstories, because their characters are thrown together in 5 minutes. Or isn't that what you're saying? :smallconfused: Stormwind Fallacy goes both ways, remember?

[RelentlessImp]

Nope. You're saying that "real optimizers" always make superb backstories, because they must "justify their choices" and "roleplayers" have worse backstories, because their characters are thrown together in 5 minutes. Or isn't that what you're saying? :smallconfused:

I'm saying that people who go to the trouble of optimizing tend to make characters that are more consistent, more realistic, and more believable.

Tend to. Not always. And never did I split the line between "optimizers" and "roleplayers". You're confusing me with Twilight of the Gods over there. They're all roleplayers. There's no such thing as a rollplayer, except for munchkins.

[Anarchy_Kanya]

I'm saying that people who go to the trouble of optimizing tend to make characters that are more consistent, more realistic, and more believable.
And I could say that people who optimize tend to focus most of their time on numbers and neglect the fluff/roleplaying. It's as viable statement as any other. It all depends on the player in question. Ones are smart and can do both very well. Some aren't and either do one thing good and neglect the other, or do both things half-assed.


Tend to. Not always.
Yeah. Now you say that, but your earlier post made me believe that every "real optimizer" makes good characters and every player who does not optimize is also a bad roleplayer. :smallannoyed:
The thing here is that if you're too lazy or stupid to do one of this things good, then you're also often too lazy or stupid to do the other thing good. I know I am. :smalltongue:

and that PM scared the crap out of me. I was afraid that it was a warning/infraction for something that I said in one of the closed threads. :smallamused:

[RelentlessImp]

{Scrubbed}

[Gotterdammerung]

I'm saying that people who go to the trouble of optimizing tend to make characters that are more consistent, more realistic, and more believable.

Tend to. Not always. And never did I split the line between "optimizers" and "roleplayers". You're confusing me with Twilight of the Gods over there. They're all roleplayers. There's no such thing as a rollplayer, except for munchkins.

I agreed with you that optimizing and roleplaying is not mutually exclusive. I just added that some people do one and not the other. I've seen it. I've seen the extreme on both sides. I've seen completely worthless combat players who had wonderful stories and completely powergamed characters who had the worst most convoluted background stories or no story at all.

All i did was acknowledge 2 core groups and add that in their perspectives they are both right.

P.S. I hate that translation of my name. "twilight of the Gods" is a fail translation. Gotterdammerung is the german word for the apocalyptic ending to the Norse Mythology (Ragnarok).
Gott- God
Gotter-Gods
Dammer- dimmer; like a light dimmering
Ung- suffix denoting a period of time
Dammerung- a time when light dimmers, often use to describe sunset or twilight.

When you put it together literally, you can arrive at a very simple translation of "twilight of the Gods". But when you apply the context of the cataclysmic battle royal filled with death and woe for most of the Gods, a translation like "When the light no longer shines on the Gods" is closer to the true meaning. It is a poetic name and translating it literally doesn't do it justice.

[RelentlessImp]

All i did was acknowledge 2 core groups and add that in their perspectives they are both right.


Except they're not two core groups. You have roleplayers, and you have munchkins. You're separating the first group into two, and lumping in the munchkins with practical optimizers.



P.S. I hate that translation of my name. "twilight of the Gods" is a fail translation. Gotterdammerung is the german word for the apocalyptic ending to the Norse Mythology (Ragnarok).
Gott- God
Gotter-Gods
Dammer- dimmer; like a light dimmering
Ung- suffix denoting a period of time
Dammerung- a time when light dimmers, often use to describe sunset or twilight.

When you put it together literally, you can arrive at a very simple translation of "twilight of the Gods". But when you apply the context of the cataclysmic battle royal filled with death and woe for most of the Gods, a translation like "When the light no longer shines on the Gods" is closer to the true meaning. It is a poetic name and translating it literally doesn't do it justice.

Thank you for the lesson. I've only ever heard it transliterated, not translated.

[NNescio]

I agreed with you that optimizing and roleplaying is not mutually exclusive. I just added that some people do one and not the other. I've seen it. I've seen the extreme on both sides. I've seen completely worthless combat players who had wonderful stories and completely powergamed characters who had the worst most convoluted background stories or no story at all.

All i did was acknowledge 2 core groups and add that in their perspectives they are both right.

P.S. I hate that translation of my name. "twilight of the Gods" is a fail translation. Gotterdammerung is the german word for the apocalyptic ending to the Norse Mythology (Ragnarok).
Gott- God
Gotter-Gods
Dammer- dimmer; like a light dimmering
Ung- suffix denoting a period of time
Dammerung- a time when light dimmers, often use to describe sunset or twilight.

When you put it together literally, you can arrive at a very simple translation of "twilight of the Gods". But when you apply the context of the cataclysmic battle royal filled with death and woe for most of the Gods, a translation like "When the light no longer shines on the Gods" is closer to the true meaning. It is a poetic name and translating it literally doesn't do it justice.

Because "When the light no longer shine on the Gods" is not as catchy. Plus "Twilight" conveys that poetic meaning in English, regardless.

(cf. "twilight of life", "twilight days", "twilight hours", etc.)

And if you want to nitpick like that, Götterdämmerung (umlauts *twitch*) itself is a literal translation of Ragnarǫkkr/Ragnarökkr/Ragna Røkkr, "Twilight of the Gods".

And the original Norse is probably Ragnarǫk (Fate of the Gods) instead of Ragnarǫkkr anyway, so Wagner himself may have made a mistake there.

I prefer to think that he took some liberties with the translation.

[Basket Burner]

I am quoting myself so that it isn't lost in the derail.


Right... well back to the matter at hand then.

I am observing a game in which one character does an average of 120 damage a round, and 2 others average about 80 damage a round each. The group is level 6. Interestingly enough, the party lost. The main reason why they lost? They weren't killing things fast enough. Now granted, that was because of a combination of inability to get into position to deal out that damage, instead doing a much lower number and being countered by one thing or another from terrain to bad luck but the moral of this story is that if you do low damage (and the amount of damage that was actually dealt was low), then you lose if HP damage is your thing. And the amount of damage that was actually getting through? Much less than 50 a round per person, on average. In other words, the numbers that are supposedly fine.



In that example: +3 resistance from a cloak or the greater resistance spell, +4 morale from mass conviction, +3 luck from recitation. Standard in any decent party, so that everyone doesn't get destroyed by Fort and Will effects (Ref is just an added bonus).



A level 10 non caster, without proper magic item access. There is no encounter that is appropriate for him, because he is nowhere near level appropriate. Just random unoptimized stuff would slap them around all over the field. There is no effort involved. Either in boosting the enemy, or in the player making their character not die to a stiff breeze.



Enemy has [number of HP that is > 0]. Enemy is just fine, fights at full effectiveness. That is a fact. Contrast to your denial, that flies in the face of facts, and your subsequent dismissal that is just insulting.



I am listening to you just fine. That is how I know that your points are entirely invalid. For you see, listening is not the same as accepting false statements as true.